# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1860_S89
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

From German Reviews.    89

first respect, the author says: "In publishing this commentary on the Epistle of James, I express the wish that it may contribute its part both to the understanding of the epistle in general and, in particular, to the solution of the problem which the doctrine of justification contained in it presents. That a new attempt at its solution is not in itself unwarranted is clear enough from the fact that, through all investigations thus far, however thorough some of them may be, no agreement has yet been reached as to whether an essential, or only an inessential, or indeed no opposition at all, prevails between Paul and James. And yet it must matter a great deal to the evangelical church to arrive at a sure understanding on this point. Luther, to be sure, found himself, in his unfavorable judgment of this "strawy epistle," as he famously called it, entirely reassured by the opinion that its author was not James but some good, pious man; but in such an opinion no reassurance can now be sought, since the critical research of our time has established with ever greater certainty that this epistle is indeed the work of James, whom Paul reckoned not only among the στύλοι [pillars], but whose hand of κοινωνία [fellowship], offered to him, he also accepted. On the other hand, however, we cannot be satisfied by such attempts to reconcile the discord lying in the wording, which conceal the problem rather than truly solve it, as is the case, for example, in Apology III. If James teaches justification differently from Paul, in such a way that, although he agrees with him on this or that point, he nevertheless stands in other points in an irreconcilable opposition to him, then without doubt the certainty of the foundation on which the evangelical church is built is endangered. For this reason not only scholarship but also the church has a living interest that this problem be made the object of ever-renewed investigation for as long as it takes until it has found a truly satisfying solution. I therefore send my work on its way with the wish that it may help our church to gain an ever surer and more joyful confidence in the apostolic spirit of the Epistle of James." — In these statements of Huther's there lies a grave misapprehension of the true state of affairs. If evangelical Christendom were to take the standpoint of such a view, it would first have to give itself up. It is thoroughly unevangelical, unprotestant, and contrary to the spirit and nature of the Reformation — for all its appearance of scholarliness and intellectual freedom it is nothing but old, thick, papist superstition, when the church is expected to acknowledge the holy Scriptures, whether as a whole or in particular parts, already a priori — simply for that reason — as canonical, as the norm, rule, and standard for faith and life, because they were composed by prophets and apostles, or, at most, were only held by the fathers to be prophetic and apostolic. Through such an a priori bibliolatry